Is anything worse?

When even friends of long standing begin to announce that you are running a nasty, very negative campaign, as Hagel, Daschle and others have recently remarked about the McCain campaign, you might think McCain would take notice and perhaps try to clean up his act. There is no sign he is about to do so. McCain and his backers know they are losing, and as they have nothing positive to run on, they have little choice but to roviate Obama, which they are doing now with a vengeance. Part of McCain’s problem is that everything he tries to criticize about Obama, he is guilty of himself. Obama a flip-flopper, he’s an amateur at it compared to McCain. He criticizes, even makes fun of Obama’s suggestion that more troops are needed in Afghanistan, but then later he wants to outdo him by sending even more troops. He makes fun of Obama’s desire to see an end to the Iraq business in 16 months, but then says maybe 16 months is a reasonable time line. He says Obama just doesn’t understand (anything, I guess) while he is the one who makes one awkward gaffe or mistake after another. He mistakes Shiites and Sunnis, doesn’t know where the border of Pakistan is, admits to knowing nothing about economics, and so on. He says Obama doesn’t support the troops when his own voting record indicates he is far worse about supporting them than Obama is. It seems that everything he tries somehow backfires or makes him look silly. Obama makes a speech in Germany in front of more than 200,000 people, McCain has lunch with Lindsay Graham at Schmidt’s Sausage House. Obama talks about the economy, McCain visits a grocery store where he interviews a woman planted by his staff, and while doing so a bunch of cans fall off the shelf. He tells blatant lies that unfortunately for him can be proven as lies by videotapes and witnesses. He accuses Obama of not wanting to solve the energy crisis by drilling offshore, yet he himself previously was opposed to such drilling (when he changed his mind he apparently received a million dollars in donations from the oil companies). His worst moment came when he basically accused Obama of treason: “he’d rather be President than win the war.” This, of course, was the ultimate low blow, virtually unprecedented in political campaigns. Decent people just don’t accuse their opponents of things like treason. Even here McCain should be very careful with his accusations about how bad someone wants to become President. Consider his own situation: he has virtually sold his soul to try to become President. He has sold it to the oil companies, the corporations, the evangelicals, the Brafia base, and anyone else he could find. Most of all he sold it to George W. Bush who slandered and insulted him terribly in his previous bid for the Presidency. No matter, he subsequently was hugging Bush and identifying himself and his campaign with him, and, in short, shamelessly doing anything and everything to ingratiate himself. He has obsequiously pandered to those he formerly held in contempt. No one wants the Presidency more than McCain, and few would go so far as to sell their soul for it. McCain has done just that. He is not in a position to judge how badly Obama wants to be President. He is perhaps the worst Presidential candidate ever, although in 2000 he was an entirely different person, the “maverick” that people admired. I think it is a sad story and I fear it will get worse as the campaign continues.

I don’t understand some of these claims about what candidates need in a vice president. For example, Obama, who is said to be weak on foreign policy, is believed by some to have a vice president who is strong on foreign policy (like Biden, in this case). McCain is said to be weak on economics so he needs someone like Romney, and so on. This seems to me to be utter nonsense. Any President is obviously going to have dozens, even hundreds of experts of all kinds at his disposal. He isn’t going to single-handedly make up his foreign policy, nor is he going to consult with only his vice president. Are we supposed to believe that Biden would refuse to advise him if he isn’t vice president? Like so much of what we hear about the campaigns this strikes me as ridiculous. It may be the case that Bush pays no attention to his advisors (except Cheney?), but that has never been true of other Presidents (who, for the most part, unlike Bush, actually had brains that functioned). I suppose is does make sense to pick someone who might help you politically, like win a crucial state, or a given category of voters (Hispanics, Jews, Blacks, White women, etc.). But as the entire electoral process is fundamentally absurd I don’t know why even this matters. It is being said now that most voters haven’t been paying attention, and some even say they won’t pay attention until probably October. So what the hell has the past year or more been all about? What has been the point? It is apparently just one extra long media event, like a Christmas season for the television and newspaper industries. Who else benefits from this ongoing diarrea of the mouth, other than these industries? Certainly not the voters, or even the candidates. What would all these people do without wars and elections? I guess they would have to find something useful to do.

LKBIQ:
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Bible, Matthew xvi. 26.